This invention on relates to cleansing apparatus for use in a vehicle washing system.
Certain vehicle washing systems known to the applicant include elongate vertically mounted brushes which are suspended from overhead supports and which are rotatable about rigid vertically extending axes. A brush of this kind must be long enough to clean the external surface of any vehicle which is driven past it. Thus the length of the brush must be sufficient to accommodate the tallest vehicle which will be cleaned in the system.
The brush is usually suspended from its upper end. This carries with it the significant disadvantage that when a vehicle, which is substantially shorter than the vertical height of the brush, strikes the lower end, particularly if the vehicle is moving relatively fast, the brush can be bent about its vertical axis. The bending takes place because of the moment exerted by the vehicle on the lower end of the brush about the upper suspension point.
A second problem which is encountered with a rigidly suspended vertically aligned brush is that certain vehicles have sloping sides and, although the bristles of the brush are compressible at least to a limited extent in the radial direction, it is not always possible to clean the entire area of a sloping side.